My question is: when is Betelgeuse supposed to supernova? I have been waiting for a while now. Some people say it will explode this year, but I'm not sure. It is getting very close to its supernova, and I want to be able to witness the explosion.
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1$\begingroup$ +1 funny , albeit unintentional. Not only is space " is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is," but it's been around for longer than Keith Richards. $\endgroup$– Carl WitthoftApr 14, 2022 at 11:57
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Don't worry you won't miss it when it supernovas. And you'll only have to wait for a short bit! Maybe even only 100,000 years! Set your alarm clocks now.
Eschewing sarcasm, Betelgeuse is likely going to supernova soon, but soon in astronomical terms is a very large range. It could mean tomorrow, or it could mean 100,000 years from now. We just can't give any answer more precisely than that. Determining exactly when it'll supernova (e.g., down to the year) requires (a) knowing waaaayy more information about Betelgeuse than we currently know (in fact, even more than we know about our own Sun) and (b) having way more accurate and complicated physics models of stars than we currently have.
We can get a general estimate when Betelgeuse will supernova (accurate to a few hundred thousand years) based on observations of the star and of physics models, but the uncertainties in both are high enough that the range of any estimate is necessarily large.
Many astronomers have spent a lot of effort to characterize Betelgeuse better to understand its present state, its evolution, and its future fate. All of this can help narrow down when Betelgeuse will actually supernova. A short list of types of observations is below.
- Dharmawardena et al. (2020) - Observations of Betelgeuse in sub-mm wavelengths.
- Harper et al. (2016) - Precise measurements on location of Betelgeuse.
- Kervella et al. (2017) - Observations of envelope of gas around Betelgeuse
- Chiavassa et al. (2018) - Simulations of convection within Betelgeuse, as compared to observations
This helps others, like Dolan et al. (2016), put all the puzzle pieces together. But even with all this observation, the best they can say is
in a little less than [100,000 years], [Betelgeuse] will supernova
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$\begingroup$ There is that Asimov novel in which advanced scientists can predict with far greater accuracy, "The Currents of Space" $\endgroup$ Apr 14, 2022 at 11:59